®EMPLOYING HANDWRITING WITHOUT TEARS TO TEACH A 4-YEAR-OLD PRESCHOOL STUDENT TO WRITE HIS NAME WITH THE

APPROPRIATE SIZE, SHAPE, AND FORM COMBINED WITH AN IMITATE/TRACE/COPY/MEMORY PROCEDURE

* Early Childhood Special Education** Retired Full Professor, Gonzaga University

***,**** Full Professors, Department of Special Education, Gonzaga University.***** Associate Professor ,East Carolina State University

****** Special Education Teacher, Spokane Public Schools

ABSTRACT

The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the prewriting and handwriting curriculum ®Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) in a preschool setting with a single student who has developmental delays and a

suspected Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnosis. Data were collected during the regular preschool day. The

behavior measured was the student's ability to independently and accurately write his name given by the visual prompt

“Name: ______” and verbal instructional cue “write your name”. A modified imitate, trace, copy, and memory ®procedure was used with the student with the instructional support and curriculum from the Handwriting Without Tears

Get Set for School (Olsen, 2003) curriculum. In addition to this curriculum, first author created materials were also used. ®The overall outcomes indicated that the Handwriting Without Tears programs was successful in teaching that student

who has severe developmental delays, tactile defensiveness, and sensory processing deficits to write his name.

Keywords: Handwriting, Preschooler, Handwriting Without Tears, Name, Multiple Baseline Design, Single Case Research.

EMALIA C. STEELE * T. F. MCLAUGHLIN ** K. MARK DERBY ***

By

S

INTRODUCTION

Preschool is a critical time when very young children focus

on play-based, hands-on readiness activities, which build

their foundation for lifelong learning. Whether children are

writing their names, drawing pictures, solving math

problems, or conducting science experiments, handwriting

is an essential skill. Handwriting is crucial to academic

success as well as an important component of

communication (Graham, 1999, 2010; Graham, Harris, &

Fink, (2000). Children develop their handwriting skills in

stages. Many children begin to develop prewriting skills by

first scribbling on a paper with a crayon or marker and

moving towards drawing prewriting shapes such as a

square circle, and triangle. As early students, many

children are still developing the appropriate grasp for

holding a writing utensil. They also learn to distinguish

letters from numbers and begin to recognize the letters in

their name. Many children at the preschool age begin to

recognize their name in print and that print has meaning.

In preschool, often before any formal schooling takes

place, children develop awareness that writing has

meaning (Naidoo, Engelbrecht, Lewis, & Kekana, 2009,

Neuman, S. 2004). Handwriting is a difficult skill as it

involves an intricate exchange of cognitive and visual

motor skills, hand strength and fine motor ability, as well as

environmental factors that may be inhibiting the ability to

learn (Donica, Larson, & Zinn, (2012).

As a child progresses from scribbling on paper to making

more precise motor movements, children begin to notice

the visual features of print: Such as big lines, little lines, and

shapes. Furthermore, they see that the shapes can be

used to generate letters and words. This is why the ®Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) program (Olsen, 1998,

2003) encourages instructors to teach a child how to draw

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KIMBERLY P. WEBER **** DENISE DONICA ***** MICHELLE MCKENZIE ******

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simple shapes within a developmental sequence prior to

the letters that use the respective shape. This program has

been revised and expanded to include new materials

over time (Olsen 2005, 2013; Olsen & Knapton, 2006,

2008, 2012; 2013).

Though handwriting in early childhood has not been well

documented until late, studies are beginning to show that

there are some consistencies in teaching effective initial

penmanship skills. Appropriate grip, writing letters from the

top with downward strokes, and incorporating fun learning

strategies are all supported by the early childhood

handwriting curriculum HWT® (Roberts, 2009).

®The HWT handwriting curriculum (Olsen, 1998, 2003) has ®started to be evaluated in the literature. HWT methods were

®selected for this study for two primary reasons. First, HWT is

used in the study participant's classroom and was

recommended by the participant's occupational therapist. ®Second, HWT has been suggested by occupational

therapists in general because of the appropriate

developmental techniques it uses (Case-Smith, 2002;

Donica, 2010a, 2010b). Since children progress their

copying skills from a horizontal line to a circle, cross,

square, and then triangle, teaching shapes seemed a

logical skill to be paired with handwriting. Learning how to

draw shapes uses horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines

to reinforce proper handwriting technique and will give

the student guidance in developing the muscle and ®strength in the hand. Given this, the materials from HWT

will be used for both primary instruction and supporting

skill. In research and theory, the systematic instruction ®found in HWT has been replicated in current research in

working with students with disabilities as tracing and start

points have been used in recent research with preschool

students with disabilities. The development of handwriting ®is seen in the early primary years and HWT is useful for all

students regardless of whether or not they have a disability

as the curriculum teaches handwriting skills that are based

on what children already know and how they learn best

since it capitalizes on their development level.

Objective

The objective of this study was to evaluate the

effectiveness of the prewriting and handwriting curriculum ®HWT in the same preschool setting as much of our early

research. We also wanted to replicate the efficacy of

HWT® with a child who has developmental delays and a

suspected diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

The second objective of the study was to have the

participant print his first name independently in capital

letters with the appropriate size, shape, and form. The final

objective of the present case report was to increase the

participant's ability to copy prewriting shapes (square,

triangle, circle).

Method

Participant and Setting

The participant of this study was one student in an Early

Childhood Education Assistance Program (ECEAP) in the

Pacific Northwest. The participant was a 4-year-old boy

with diagnosed Developmental Delays in pre-academic,

communication, fine motor, and adaptive domains. He

has been also diagnosed with tactile defensiveness and

has gastrointestinal and sensory deficits. The participant

was born prematurely at 27 weeks gestation weighing just

over 2 lbs. He is a triplet and is the only one of the three that

has developmental delays. He and his sisters spent just

under 90 days in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

His parents are very involved in his education as he lives

with his mom, dad, sisters, and grandmother. Data

collection occurred during the regular preschool

classroom routine. The students attended school four

days per week. Fridays were used for home visits,

planning, and conferences with parents.

Data Collection

Data were collected and sessions were conducted during

free play and center activity time during the preschool

day. These data were collected in the morning session

since that is when the participant attended preschool. The

participant was instructed individually and most of the

sessions occurred at a table outside the classroom in

order to provide the student with more conducive and

quiet learning environment. The classroom was staffed by

a certified teacher, two para-educators, and a student

teacher (first author). In addition, the physical therapist,

17li-manager’s Journal o Psychology, Vol. No. 4 ln Educational 8 February - April 2015

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occupational therapist, and speech and language

pathologist would also be in and out of the classroom

depending upon the day.

Our participant's skills in writing his name indicated there

were multiple prerequisite skills and knowledge that are

related to the objective that our participant needed to

acquire order to be successful with the letters. For the

learning task, the participant had the ability to recognize

his name from a cluster of names, name uppercase and

lowercase letters, as well as match uppercase letters with

lowercase letters. The participant knew the name of

individual letters in his name and could correctly respond

when asked how to spell his name. However, when asked

to write his name in Baseline, the participant was unable to

correctly and independently form, size, and shape a

majority of the letters in his name.

Finally, the participant was somewhat able to trace

uppercase THO with written highlighted letters as prompts,

as he was able to write over the highlighted letter but did

so with inconsistent form, shape, and size. The participant

did not show any ability to trace MAS independently when

given highlighted letters as prompts. When asked to write

his name without any highlighted letters, the participant

was able to make marks on the paper that reflect the first

three letters of his name but did so with inconsistent size,

shape, and letter formation. The participant was unable to

independently write the last three letters of his name and

would make scribbles on the paper after writing the O.

The participant had recently moved from a self-

contained preschool to an inclusive preschool integrated

with typically developing peers. The preschool consisted

of two sessions: a morning session and an afternoon

session. The morning session would last from 9:00 a.m. to

11:30 am and the afternoon session would last from 12:30

p.m. to 3:00 p.m. The participant as the student attended

the morning session. The classroom was an integrated

setting containing students from low-income families,

students with Individualized Education Plans, English

Language Students, and typically developing peers. All

students were of ages 3 to 5 years. This classroom has

been the setting for several research projects involving ®handwriting and HWT (Coussens, McLaughlin, Derby, &

McKenzie, 2012; LeBrun, McLaughlin, Derby, & McKenzie,

2012; Morris, McLaughlin, Derby, & McKenzie, 2012).

Materials or Tools

The study utilized the materials developed from the ®Handwriting Without Tears curriculum. The curriculum

used was the ‘Get Set for School’ (Olsen, 2003) curriculum.

The curriculum included: the wooden manipulatives used

to form capital letters, letter cards with the outlines of the

wooden manipulatives on them, as well as name writing

worksheets. These materials are available from the

publisher and come with the HWT curricula. In addition,

the first author had created a box controlled name writing

worksheet in which the student would place an first author

made basketball court stencil over the strip of paper and

he would write his name in the size controlled boxes.

Additionally, markers, whiteboard, white board markers

were used. Also, the classroom iPad was used as a reward

for the student after he completed five activities.

Dependent Variable and Measurement

The purpose of the study was to increase the participant's

ability to write his name. According to the baseline data

that was taken prior to the beginning of the intervention,

the participant did not display knowledge of how to

properly size, shape, and form the letters of his name.

Therefore, given the visual prompt “Name: _____ “ and

verbal instructional cue “Write your name” the participant

was taught how to independently and accurately write his

name with the correct size, shape, and form for each

letter within his name.

The participant's name was scored using a point system.

Three points were awarded for each letter of his name.

One point was given for size – whether the size was

appropriate and matched the sample. One point was

given for appropriate formation – whether the proper ®letter formation for each letter matched the HWT

curriculum. The third point was awarded for shape –

whether the letter was legible and appeared to have the

overall shape of the letter that was to be written.

Experimental Design and Conditions

The design of the study was a multiple baseline (Kazdin,

2011; McLaughlin, 1983) across sets of letters. A

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description of each phase follows.

Baseline: During baseline the participant was given a

marker, a piece of plain white paper with the visual

prompt “Name: _____,” and the same verbal instructional

cue “Write your name”. This condition was in effect from 3

to 20 sessions.

®HWT : Following baseline, the student was provided with

the imitate/trace/copy/memory intervention with the ®HWT curriculum which will be described. For each

session, the first author would introduce the letter to the

participant by asking him what letters it was, what sound it

makes, and what some words or things were that started

with the letter. After this introduction, the first author would

begin the intervention. The first author using first model that

shows, would make the letter that was being taught that ®day with the wooden manipulatives. The HWT letter card

would be placed on the table in front of the student and

the first author would verbally say the formation cues while

placing the wooden pieces on the letter card. For

example, when teaching “T,” the first author would state,

“Start at the top at the smiley face. Big line down, frog

jump, little line across”. The wooden pieces would then be

given to the participant so he could create the letter while

saying, with the first author, the correct formation cues. The

wooden pieces would then be taken away from the

participant and he would have to tell the first author how to

make the letter by asking for the correct wooden pieces

(imitate). After the participant was able to complete the

imitate step with the letter card, the letter card was taken

away, and a blank piece of paper was given to the

student to see if he was able to create the letter without

the prompts from the letter card (dotted outline of where

the wooden pieces are placed, smiley start point).

Once the participant had the correct formation of the

letter with the wooden manipulatives, he would be

watched as the first author modeled how to write the letter

on the whiteboard. The participant would trace over the

modeled letter on the whiteboard with different colored

markers to make “rainbow letters” (trace). Once finished,

the participant was presented with the whiteboard in order

to copy the letter. During the copy procedure there was no

smiley/basketball start point for starting the reference

point. Instead, the participant would watch and listen to

the first author as the first author demonstrated the letter in

one half of the whiteboard. This was followed by the

participant printing the letter in the other half of the

whiteboard while verbally saying the letter formation cues

“big line down, little line across”. The participant would ®then complete the corresponding ‘HWT Get Set for

School’ worksheet for the letter that was introduced in that

day. While completing the worksheet, the participant

would be given guided practice in correctly forming,

shaping, and sizing each letter. The participant will then be ®given a HWT This is my Name worksheet found in the Get

Set for School book in which he would watch the first author

white writing the participant's name while the first author

verbally modeled how to form each letter (copy). The

participant would then independently write the

introduced letter and previously taught letter(s) as well as

trace the untaught letters under the model. After this

additional practice, the participant would be asked to

write his name again to assess if he was able to write the

letter from memory with no additional prompting beside

the verbal prompt “Write your name” and the visual written

prompt “Name: __” (memory). Once the first letter had

reached mastery when given the daily assessment, the

second letter was introduced. Mastery was defined as for

each letter as having the correct size, shape, and form as ®defined by HWT curriculum, for two or more days.

Interobserver Agreement of Implementation of

Experimental Conditions

Permanent product data were collected at the beginning

of each session. The participant was provided with a blank

piece of paper with the visual written prompt “Name:

______” and verbal instructional cue “Write your name”.

The participant was encouraged to do the best that he

could. The first author gathered the data by scoring the

participant's work and would have another teacher who

was trained on how to score the letters score by the

participant's work to obtain interobserver agreement. The

numbers of handwriting points given to the participant by

the two teachers were compared to each other.

Interobserver agreement was calculated by diving the

smaller number of handwriting points by the larger and

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multiplying by 100. The percent of interobserver

agreement was 93% with a range of 67% to 100%.

Results

Baseline

Baseline data (as shown in Figure 1) indicated that the

participant was unable to correctly size any letter even the

letter T. For H, he was able to earn an average of .6 points

in baseline with a range of 0 to 2. For baseline with the

letter 0, participant averaged 1.0 out of 3 points (range 0

to 2 points). Even though MAS were in baseline, the

participant was able to earn from 0 to 3 handwriting points

after session 11. For the letter M, the mean number of

handwriting points earned was .082 (range 2 to 2). For

the letter A, the participant averaged 0.10 handwriting

points (range 0 to 2). For the letter S in baseline, an

increase was found at the end of data collection (M =

0.133; range 0 to 3).

®Handwriting Without Tears

As it can be also seen from Figure 1, the participant's

progress was improved over time. For the first intervention

with HWT, the participant improved and earned an

average of 2.0 handwriting points.

® Modified Handwriting Without Tears

Since the participant was not improving and showing the

ability to correctly size the letter T, the first author made a

modification in instruction to help the student to learn

proper size. With this modification, by the end of the

learning segment, the participant was able to

independently and correctly size, shape, and form each

letter that had received instruction (M = 2.7; range 2 to 3

handwriting points).

Discussion

The student made significant progress in each letter within

his name, even with letters that had not been explicitly

taught (MAS). On the last day of instruction for the learning

Figure 1. The number of total points per letter for each set for each condition.

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segment, the participant reached 88% accuracy in

independently writing his name with the correct size,

shape, and form of each letter. The first three graphs

represent Set 1: T, Set 2: H, and Set 3: O. The last three

graphs represent Set 4: M, Set 5: A, and Set 6: S. Sets 4-6

remained in baseline throughout the duration of the

learning segment due to time restraints. In continuing the

learning segment M and A would be taught next and

would be taught together along with triangle since they

have similar formation and use diagonal lines. Even

though the first author was limited with the amount of time

for instruction, the graphs show the student making a large

improvement in his abil i ty to accurately and

independently size, shape, and form the uppercase

letters of his name. Before the learning segment began,

the participant showed no ability to independently and

correctly size, shape, and form the uppercase letters T, O,

M, A, and S within his name. However, participant has the

ability to form and shape ‘H’ within his name. Once the

participant received instruction for letter H, he showed

improvement in his ability to correctly size the letter H.

Before intervention, during baseline, when the participant

would write the letter H, it would take up a majority of the

paper, as it was really wide as well as long. At the end of

baseline, our participant was not be able to trace M, A,

and S. By the end of data collection, participant was not

only able to independently trace these letters, he was

able to independently and accurately size, shape, and

form ‘S’ and size and shape ‘M’ and ‘A’. Given the

participant's level of performance prior to the beginning

of the learning segment as well as his developmental

level, the participant made vast and impressive

improvement in such a short amount of time.

When the letters ‘T’ and ‘H’ were placed in maintenance,

the participant earned an average of 3.0 handwriting

points. He did this for each session for the letters ‘T’ and ‘H’

during maintenance. When the letter ‘O’ was place in

maintenance, for the first three sessions, the participant

earned 2 out of the 3 letters possible after each session.

However, for the last three sessions, our participant had

perfect handwriting performance earning a point for size,

slant, and formation for the letter ‘O’.

Session 19 was the day that the participant had returned

from spring break and had not received instruction for two

weeks, so it appeared to indicate that learning had truly

occurred since the participant showed maintenance of

treatment gains regarding his ability to independently

and correctly size, shape, and form the letters that had

been taught after a break in practice.

Even though the participant did not receive explicit

instruction on letters M, A, or S, besides the tracing ®component during the HWT Write My Name (Olsen, 2003)

worksheet, the participant’s handwriting skills improved for

T, H, and O. However, this is not enough to say that he has

mastered the primary learning target, as more data

would need to be collected to see if the student showed

consistency and mastery. However, since the participant

was making specific and consistent errors on untaught

letters such was formation, the first author thought that at

this moment in time the student will need explicit

instruction for the specific letter to learn the correct

formation just because he has rarely been introduced to

the proper formation. The participant was inconsistent

with M, A, and S throughout the learning segment and

became better with the guided practice of tracing

untaught letters during instruction.

Strengths

The results of this study on the effectiveness of the ®Handwriting Without Tears program for a preschool

student with significant developmental delays generated

an increase in his ability to independently and accurately

write his name. Based on the large improvements made

within such a short period of time (roughly 6 weeks) the ®Handwriting Without Tears program was effective with a

student for significant developmental delays, and

suspected Aut ism Spectrum Disorders, tact i le

defensiveness, and sensory processing deficits.

An additional strength of this study is, the participant

displayed an increase in his handwriting abilities and

overall ability to correctly size, shape, and form each letter

within his name. Furthermore, the study was efficient and

effective, easy to implement, relatively costless, and

enjoyable for both the student and the first author as it

21li-manager’s Journal o Psychology, Vol. No. 4 ln Educational 8 February - April 2015

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implemented opportunities for hands-on learning which

was effective for the participant.

Limitations

A weakness of the study was that data collection was

limited and the first author ran out of time due to the

ending of her student teaching. This made it impossible to

teach the participant the remaining three letters of his

name. In addition, the participant only attended

preschool four days a week and for three hours each day.

Sessions sometimes did not occur every day the

participant was at school due to timing conflicts with

instructional limitations: Therefore, the inconsistency of

session implementation may have prevented more of an

increase in ability. In addition, halfway through the

intervention the participant began to emit behavior such

as non-compliance and issues when transitioning from a

preferred activity (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2007) to the

intervention with the first author. This factor inhibited

success as it reduced the time instruction. Such a

subjective finding needs further analysis.

Conclusions

The present outcomes replicate, much of the prior

research successes employing HWT or parts of the

handwriting curricula (Coussens et al. 2012; Delegato,

McLaughlin, Derby, & Schuster, 2013; Griff iths,

McLaughlin, Donica, Neyman, & Robison, 2013; LeBrun et

al. 2012; Thompson, McLaughlin, Derby, & Conley, 2012).

However, in the present case report authors added Get

Set for School’ as part of the HWT intervention. Clearly, with

employing a single participant, further replications

(Kazdin, 2011; McLaughlin, 1983) of these outcomes are

needed. However, this does add to the data-base for

making preliminary decisions regarding the use of HWT®

for individuals with known disabilities. In addition, some

additional research was carried out by other authors in

different classroom configurations, with a wide range of

student presence.

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23li-manager’s Journal o Psychology, Vol. No. 4 ln Educational 8 February - April 2015

* Emalia C. Steele teaches Early Childhood Special Education in the State of Colorado.

** Dr. T. F. McLaughlin has began phased retirement at Gonzaga University, where he is a tenured full Professor.

*** K. Mark Derby is the Full Professor in the Department of Special Education at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA.

**** Dr. Kimberly P. Weber is the Full Professor the Department of Special Education at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA.

***** Denise Donica is a tenured Associate Professor at East Carolina State University.

****** Michelle McKenzie is a Special Education Teacher in Spokane Public Schools.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

RESEARCH PAPERSS

24 li-manager’s Journal o Psychology, Vol. No. 4 ln Educational 8 February - April 2015